Today I visited my brother on his 50th birthday. And while we were chatting I noticed a photo cube he had sitting on one of his shelves. On one of the cube faces was a picture of me when I was about nine or ten years old. The very photograph I mentioned earlier in the blog post about Action Man in the Zero-X uniform.
So as I mentioned earlier, sometime in early 1968, I went Zero-X mad! This was probably prompted by me getting the Product SWORD toy for the 1967 Christmas. Easter time, my God Mother had bought me a Red Devils Parachute set for Action Man, and before the summer holidays, my imagination had already gone up a gear. It occurred to me that if I put the red jumpsuit on back to front, on Action Man it looked as if he were wearing a polo neck sweater. Furthermore, you could place a trousers and tunic over the jumpsuit as worn like that.
So I went to my Gran with numerous TV21s to show her the style of the outfit needed. I remember my Gran calling it a Mandarin Collar on the jacket. There was a fair bit of material over from the IR uniform she made me a few years previously. So, she marked out the pattern on that, measuring up Action Man, just as she would if she were making a Gentlemans suit. Gran then cut it all out, did something called 'hemming', and then assembled it, sewing it on her 1908 US made Singer sewing machine.
Once my Gran had completed it and checked it for size, she handed it to me to complete the ZX insignia on the upper arms. My mother was very good at embroidery, and as a child I learned from both of them how to sew and embroider. So I completed the ZX insignia myself and the outfit was complete.
Up until I reached something like eleven I had many adventures with Action Man who was on occasion joined by my dear friend Wayne's Action Man too. My Grandmother's house where we lived, had a large front, side and back garden. And I remember lots of adventures up trees, across the lawns and at the side of the Garage.
I count myself as extremely lucky, my parents, and the Fletcher family (who are my close relatives), always managed to give me the best years of my childhood they possibly could. Is it any wonder my cousin Tom Fletcher ended up founding McFly and going on to chart success.
For that I am so very grateful. I'm now in my mid sixties and although I'm very much a person of tomorrow, my home has many artifacts of those far off days when the sun seemed to be always shining, and the 1960s had yet to come to a close.
SIG
Bill
